The Chill (14 page)

“Did she tell you this?”

“Yes. I was the first one she told.”

“Did you question her about it in any detail?”

“I didn’t, no. She was quite broken up, naturally. I didn’t want to subject her to the strain.”

“But you didn’t mind subjecting her to the strain of testifying to these things in court.”

“It was necessary, necessary to the prosecution’s case. And it did her no harm.”

“Dr. Godwin thinks it did her a lot of harm, that the strain she went through then is partly responsible for her breakdown.”

“Dr. Godwin has his ideas and I have mine. If you want my opinion, he’s a dangerous man, a troublemaker. He has no respect for authority, and I have no respect for a man like that.”

“You used to respect him. You sent your niece to him for treatment.”

“I know more about him now than I did then.”

“Do you mind telling me why she needed treatment?”

“No. I don’t mind.” She was still trying to preserve a friendly surface, though we were both conscious of the disagreement simmering under it. “Dolly wasn’t doing well in school. She wasn’t happy or popular. Which was natural enough with her parents—I mean, her father, making a shambles of their home together.”

“This isn’t the backwoods,” she said as if she suspected
maybe it was, “and I thought the least I could do was see that she got a little help. Even the people on welfare get family counseling when they need it. So I persuaded my sister to take her into Pacific Point to see Dr. Godwin. He was the best we had at that time. Constance drove her in every Saturday morning for about a year. The child showed considerable improvement, I’ll say that much for Godwin. So did Constance. She seemed brighter and happier and surer of herself.”

“Was she getting treatment, too?”

“I guess she had a little, and of course it did her good to get into town every Saturday. She wanted to move into town but there was no money for it. She left McGee and moved in with me instead. That took some of the strain off her. He couldn’t stand to see that. He couldn’t stand to see her getting her dignity back. He killed her like a dog in the manger.”

After ten years her mind was still buzzing like a fly around the bloody moment.

“Why didn’t you continue Dolly’s therapy? She probably needed it more than ever afterward.”

“It wasn’t possible. I work Saturday mornings. I have to get my paperwork done some time.” She fell silent, confused and tongue-tied as honest people can be by their own deviousness.

“Also you had a disagreement with Godwin about your niece’s testimony at the trial.”

“I’m not ashamed of it, no matter what
he
says. It did her no harm to speak out about her father. It probably did her good. She had to get it out of her system somehow.”

“It isn’t out of her system, though. She’s still hung up on it.” Just as you are, Miss Jenks. “But now she’s changed her story.”

“Changed her story?”

“She says now that she didn’t see her father the night of the murder. She denies that he had anything to do with it.”

“Who told you that?”

“Godwin. He’d just been talking to her. She told him she lied in court to please the adults.” I was tempted to say more, but
remembered in time that it would almost certainly be relayed to her friend the Sheriff.

She was looking at me as if I had questioned a basic faith of her life. “He’s twisting what she said, I’m sure. He’s using her to prove that he was right when he was wrong.”

“I doubt that, Miss Jenks. Godwin doesn’t believe her new story himself.”

“You see! She’s either crazy or she’s lying! Don’t forget she’s got McGee blood in her!” She was appalled by her own outburst. She turned her eyes away, glancing around the pink room as though it might somehow vouch for the girlish innocence of her intentions. “I didn’t really mean that,” she said. “I love my niece. It’s just—it’s harder than I thought to rake over the past like this.”

“I’m sorry, and I’m sure you love your niece. Feeling about her the way you do, and did, you couldn’t have fed her a false story to tell in court.”

“Who says I did?”

“No one. I’m saying you couldn’t have. You’re not the sort of woman who could bring herself to corrupt the mind of a twelve-year-old child.”

“No,” she said. “I had nothing to do with Dolly’s accusation against her father. She came to me with it, the night it happened, within half-an-hour of the
time
it happened. I never questioned it for a minute. It had all the accents of truth.”

But she had not. I didn’t think she was lying, exactly. More likely she was suppressing something. She spoke carefully and in a low voice, so that the motto in the living room wouldn’t hear her. She still wasn’t meeting my eyes. A slow dull flush rose from her heavy neck to her face. I said:

“I doubt that it was physically possible for her to identify anyone, even her own father, at this distance on a dark night—let alone pick out a smoking gun in his hand.”

“But the police accepted it. Sheriff Crane and the D.A. both believed her.”

“Policemen and prosecutors are usually glad to accept the facts, or the pseudo-facts, that fit their case.”

“But Tom McGee was guilty. He was guilty.”

“He may have been.”

“Then why are you trying to convince me that he wasn’t?” The flush of shame in her face was going through the usual conversion into a flush of anger. “I won’t listen.”

“You might as well listen. What can you lose? I’m trying to open up that old case because it’s connected, through Dolly, with the Haggerty case.”

“Do you believe she killed Miss Haggerty?” she said.

“No. Do you?”

“Sheriff Crane seems to regard her as the main suspect.”

“Did he say so to you, Miss Jenks?”

“He as much as said so. He was feeling me out on what my reaction would be if he took her in for questioning.”

“And what was your reaction?”

“I hardly know, I was so upset. I haven’t seen Dolly for some time. She went and married behind my back. She was always a good girl, but she may have changed.”

I had the feeling that Miss Jenks was talking out of her deepest sense of herself: She had always been a good girl, but she might have changed.

“Why don’t you call Crane up and tell him to lay off? Your niece needs delicate handling.”

“You don’t believe she’s guilty of this murder?”

“I said I didn’t. Tell him to lay off or hell lose the next election.”

“I couldn’t do that. He’s my senior in county work.” But she was thinking about it. She shook the thought off. “Speaking of which, I’ve given you all the time I possibly can. It must be past twelve.”

I was ready to leave. It had been a long hour. She followed me downstairs and out onto the veranda. I had the impression
as we said goodbye that she wanted to say something more. Her face was expectant. But nothing came.

T
HE FOG HAD THINNED OUT
a little along the coastline, but you still couldn’t see the sun, only a source-less white glare that hurt the eyes. The keyboy at the Mariner’s Rest told me that Alex had driven away with an older man in a new Chrysler. His own red sports car was still in the parking enclosure, and he hadn’t checked out.

I bought a sandwich at a drive-in down the street and ate it in my room. Then I made a couple of frustrating phone calls. The switchboard operator at the courthouse said there wasn’t a chance of getting hold of a trial transcript this afternoon: everything was locked up tight for the weekend. I called the office of Gil Stevens, the lawyer who had unsuccessfully defended Tom McGee. His answering service said he was in Balboa. No, I couldn’t reach him there. Mr. Stevens was racing his yacht today and tomorrow.

I decided to drop in on Jerry Marks, the young lawyer who had acted as Mrs. Perrine’s defense counsel. His office was in a new shopping center not too far from the motel strip. Jerry was unmarried and ambitious, and he might be in it, even on a Saturday afternoon.

The front door was open and I walked into the waiting room, which was furnished with maple and chintz. The secretary’s cubicle behind the glass half-wall on the left was deserted for the weekend, but Jerry Marks was in the inner office.

“How are you, Jerry?”

“I’m all right.”

He looked at me guardedly over the book he was reading, an enormous tome entitled
Rules of Evidence
. He wasn’t very experienced in criminal practice, but he was competent and honest. His homely Middle-European face was warmed and lit by intelligent brown eyes.

“How’s Mrs. Perrine?” I said.

“I haven’t seen her since she was released, and I don’t expect to. I seldom see much of my ex-clients. I smell of the courtroom to them.”

“I have the same experience. Are you free?”

“Yeah, and I’m going to stay that way. I promised myself a clear weekend of study, murder or no murder.”

“You know about the Haggerty murder then.”

“Naturally, it’s all over town.”

“What have you heard?”

“Really not very much. Somebody at the courthouse told my secretary that this lady professor was shot by a girl student at the college. I forget her name.”

“Dolly Kincaid. Her husband is my client. She’s in a nursing home, under a doctor’s care.”

“Psycho?”

“It depends on your definition of psycho. It’s a complex situation, Jerry. I doubt that she’s legally insane under the McNaghten rule. On the other hand I very much doubt that she did the shooting at all.”

“You’re trying to get me interested in the case,” he said suspiciously.

“I’m not trying to do anything to you. Actually I came to you for information. What’s your opinion of Gil Stevens?”

“He’s the local old master. Get him.”

“He’s out of town. Seriously, is he a good lawyer?”

“Stevens is the most successful criminal lawyer in the county. He has to be good. He knows law, and he knows juries. He does pull some old-fashioned courtroom shenanigans that I wouldn’t use myself. He’s quite an actor, heavy with the emotion.
It works, though. I can’t remember when he’s lost an important case.”

“I can. About ten years ago he defended a man named Tom McGee who was convicted of shooting his wife.”

“That was before my time.”

“Dolly Kincaid is McGee’s daughter. Also, she was the key witness for the prosecution at her father’s trial.”

Jerry whistled. “I see what you mean by complex.” After a pause, he said: “Who’s her doctor?”

“Godwin.”

He pushed out his heavy lips. “I’d go easy with him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sure he’s a good psychiatrist, but maybe not so much in the forensic department. He’s a very bright man and he doesn’t hide his light under a bushel, in fact he sometimes acts like a mastermind. Which puts people’s backs up, especially if their name is Gahagan and they’re sitting on the Superior Court bench. So I’d use him sparingly.”

“I can’t control the use that’s made of him.”

“No, but you can warn her attorney—”

“It would be a lot simpler if you were her attorney. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her husband today, but I think hell go along with my recommendation. His family isn’t poverty-stricken, by the way.”

“It wasn’t the money I was thinking about,” Jerry said coldly. “I promised myself that I’d spend this weekend with my books.”

“Helen Haggerty should have picked another weekend to get herself shot.”

It came out harsher than I intended. My own failure to do anything for Helen was eating me.

Jerry regarded me quizzically. “This case is a personal matter with you?”

“It seems to be.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just hold yourself in readiness for the present.”

“I’ll be here all afternoon. After that my answering service will be able to contact me.”

I thanked him and went back to the motel. Alex’s room next to mine was still empty. I checked with my own answering service in Hollywood. Arnie Walters had left his number for me and I called Reno.

Arnie was out of the office, but his wife and partner Phyllis took the call. Her exuberant femininity bounced along the wires:

“I never
see
you, Lew. All I hear is your voice on the telephone. For all I know you don’t exist any more, but simply made some tapes a number of years ago and somebody plays them to me from time to time.”

“How do you explain the fact that I’m responsive? Like now.”

“Electronics. I explain everything I don’t understand electronically. It saves me no end of trouble. But when am I going to
see
you?”

“This weekend, if Arnie’s tabbed the driver of the convertible.”

“He hasn’t quite done that, but he does have a line on the owner. She’s a Mrs. Sally Burke and she lives right here in Reno. She claims her car was stolen a couple of days ago. But Arnie doesn’t believe her.”

“Why not?”

“He’s very intuitive. Also she didn’t report the alleged theft. Also she has boy friends of various types. Arnie’s out doing leg-work on them now.”

“Good.”

“I gather this is important,” Phyllis said.

“It’s a double murder case, maybe a triple. My client’s a young girl with emotional problems. She’s probably going to be arrested today or tomorrow, for something she almost certainly didn’t do.”

“You sound very intense.”

“This case has gotten under my skin. Also I don’t know where I’m at.”

“I never heard you admit that before, Lew. Anyway, I was thinking before you called, maybe I could strike up an acquaintance with Mrs. Sally Burke. Does that sound like a good idea to you?”

“An excellent idea” Phyllis was an ex-Pinkerton operative who looked like an ex-chorus girl. “Remember Mrs. Burke and her playmates may be highly dangerous. They may have killed a woman last night.”

“Not this woman. I’ve got too much to live for.” She meant Arnie.

We exchanged some further pleasantries in the course of which I heard people coming into Alex’s room next door. After I said goodbye to Phyllis I stood by the wall and listened. Alex’s voice and the voice of another man were raised in argument, and I didn’t need a contact mike to tell what the argument was about. The other man wanted Alex to clear out of this unfortunate mess and come home.